=20

Psychic banana's always right... mostly

A rising star of the BBC Essex breakfast show is =
clinging=20
to a job after getting the footie results wrong at the weekend.

A psychic banana, which presenter Ray Clark asks on-air to predict =
the=20
outcome of local fixtures, made its first serious slip-up on Saturday,=20
incorrectly tipping Colchester United for defeat against Stevenage.

Clark, who won breakfast show gold at Thursday's Gillard awards, =
hasn't gone=20
bananas; he's simply testing out a claim made by a listener who said she =
discovered the sex of her children before they were born by slicing =
through the=20
fruit bowl favourite.

'We got talking about bananas on air,' Clark explains. 'I mentioned =
that a=20
lot of the country's bananas were ripened at a plant in Essex and it =
went on=20
from there. This particular listener said she had sexed her three =
children by=20
cutting a section through a banana. She'd ask it a question such as =
'Will I have=20
a boy?' If the seed pattern resembled the letter Y it meant yes; if it =
was a dot=20
the answer was no.'

Banana says yes=20

Sports presenter Ben Fryer suggested the soothsayer was put to work =
at once=20
to determine whether Southend United would win their next match. The =
banana said=20
yes and Southend won.

Its form continued until it threw something of a curveball the other =
week. It=20
predicted Colchester United would defeat Yeovil Town, but the Somerset =
side went=20
on to win 3-1.

But rather than call it a sham or decry its talents as skin-deep, =
listeners=20
sprang to the banana's defence, pointing out that the question had not =
been=20
verbalised in this instance. 'We assumed the banana would know,' admits =
Clark=20
sorrowfully. 'People texted and commented on our Facebook page that the =
question=20
wasn't clear.'

Another chance=20

There were no such excuses last weekend. 'The psychic banana is =
SACKED,'=20
proclaimed Ben Fryer on Twitter after Colchester defied the clairvoyant =
with a=20
1-0 victory.

But by midweek he'd calmed down. 'The banana is being given a chance =
to=20
redeem itself,' he tells Ariel. 'It is 100% accurate at tipping Southend =
United's results, with four right out of four, so we have decided that =
the=20
banana is psychic when it comes to their scores.'

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